Olympic Speedskating Results 2018: Men, Women Team Pursuit Medal Winners
Norway's trio of Havard Bokko, Simen Spieler Nilsen and Sverre Lunde Pedersen produced a stunning performance to beat South Korea in the men's team pursuit in the long-track speedskating Winter Olympics final on Wednesday.
Despite the backing of a home crowd for South Korea, the Norwegian team rallied, winning with a time of 3 minutes, 37.31 seconds. They were eventually a sizeable 1.21 seconds ahead of the hosts.
In the women's event, Japan broke the Olympic record on their way to gold, as Miho Takagi, Ayana Sato and Nana Takagi beat the Dutch trio in the gold-medal race with a time of 2:53.89; the Netherlands had lowered the record earlier in the day in their semi-final.
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The United States were able to take bronze in the women's competition after beating Canada, while the Netherlands dominated New Zealand in the men's showdown for third.
Here are the results from an absorbing day in the team pursuit finals.
Team Pursuit Results
Women's
Gold-Medal Race: Japan (2:53.89, OR) beat Netherlands (2:55.47)
Bronze-Medal Race: United States (2:59.27) beat Canada (2:59.72)
Men's
Gold-Medal Race: Norway (3:37.31) beat South Korea (3:38.52)
Bronze-Medal Race: Netherlands (3:38.40) beat New Zealand (3:43.54)
For the day's results in full visit the Pyeongchang website.
Glory for Norway and Japan
The structure of the team pursuit event is geared towards a gripping conclusion, as four races—two for men and two for women—brought the day's action to an end. And in each one a medal was on the line.
The two teams that failed to win their semi-finals dropped into a battle for bronze, and setting the tone for the finals was a scrap in the women's event between longstanding rivals USA and Canada.
The United States just about did enough to take bronze, that despite a hairy last lap that saw their opponents chop down a gap of two seconds to just 0.45 seconds. As noted by NBC Sports' Nick Zaccardi, this medal had been a long time coming for Team USA:
Much was expected of the Netherlands in the final, as the trio of had already broken the Olympic record in the semi-finals.
After leading much of the final against Japan, the Dutch appeared to be in total control of the contest. However, they lost ground when trying to change the order of skaters late in the race and the slicker changeovers from Japan put them in control.
As the results show, eventually Japan were comfortable winners. As noted by the Team World Blog, the sense of Dutch dominance in long track was beginning to slip, too:
Meanwhile, per Gracenote Olympic, the victory for Japan made this their most successful Games ever:
The Dutch had a chance to bounce back in the next event, as the Netherlands men battled against New Zealand for the bronze. Within one lap, they had a lead of more than a half-second on their rivals from Down Under.
While in some of the earlier races, there were oscillations in the lead, but this time the margin continued to widen, allowing the Dutch to ease off in the final stages.
Attention then turned to the showdown between Norway and South Korea, with the latter team backed by a raucous home support. And at the midpoint of the race, the Koreans had reeled Norwegians in to lead after a slow start.
But Bokko, Nilsen and Pedersen had something in reserve, as they surged through the final stages and pulled out a big gap to the hosts. The majority of those in the Gangneung Oval falling silent late on would've been enough to let the South Korean team know that they would have to settle for silver on this occasion.
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